It is a fact that touchscreens are being used increasingly, including in human-machine interfaces (“HMIs”) of motor vehicles, and traditional roaming electronic devices, such as smartphones and electronic tablets, are also being used increasingly in said vehicles, in particular, but not exclusively, for a navigation/guidance function.
It turns out, however, that using physical buttons provides an ease of use that a touchscreen is unable to offer, in particular when driving, when the user's finger(s) may tremble and are not accurate.
As a result, a need has emerged to combine the versatility of a smartphone or of an electronic tablet with the ease of use of a physical button.
One of the physical buttons whose ease of use is most appreciated by users is a rotary control knob, furthermore equipped, or not equipped, with an axial confirmation motion. Mention is also made of a “multifunctional control knob”; the technical component underlying the control knob is traditionally based on an encoder based on an optical principle or on the Hall effect, which device is not available in smartphones and electronic tablets, which are often completely touch-based.